I remember clearly the first
time I used an OHP (Overhead Projector). It was a disaster. At that time, I was
an Industrial Engineer in Philips Singapore; and I was offered an assignment to
conduct a basic IE course for our butterflies and line leaders on a Saturday
morning. “Butterflies” is the name we used for experienced female operators who
had sufficient experience and skill to ‘float’ along and take up any position in
the production line whenever the need arose. The honorarium they paid me was
quite generous, even though I had no teaching experience.
The trouble started right at
the beginning of my class. Before I even began my lecture, the light bulb of
the OHP blew and I had to learn, on-the-job, how to change the bulb. I learned
later that you should never move an OHP with the light turned on because the
vibration could cause the fragile hot filament of the bulb to break. I must
have looked like a bumbling idiot in front of those young ladies in my class.
This slim foldable 3M projector was popular with the trainers because it was highly portable; but it was expensive. |
After I joined the National
Productivity Board in 1984 as a trainer and management consultant, using the
OHP became second nature to me. It is interesting to recall the evolution of
the overhead transparency that was part of my daily tools for two decades until
its demise with the advent of Powerpoint and the LCD projector.
First there was the Write-on Transparency.
For this, you have to manually write the words on the plastic sheet using
transparency markers of various colours like those below. My favourite brands
were Faber Castell and Stabilo.
Then came the Photocopy Transparency.
The year was probably around 1987, when we started to use the laser printer in
NPB. I remember, we trainers had to submit our jobs to the typists to type out
our transparencies on the Apple Macintosh and print them on a laser printer. Of
course, the transparencies at that time were all black and white. Whenever I
wanted to highlight certain portions of my slide, I had to cut out strips of sticky
colour sheets and paste them over the relevant portions ... like this.
After that came the colour
transparencies. But because they were quite expensive, I used them sparingly. I
remember being one of the first to purchase a digital camera and I converted some
of my important colour photo slides to transparencies to use in companies which
did not have a (photo) slide projector. As a 5S trainer, I used a lot of
(photo) colour slides.
The trainer’s life at the NPB
was tough. At that time, we had an executive director who was a merciless slave
driver. He seemed to harbour a special dislike for us trainers – possibly
because we were such an egoistical lot (well, some of us at least), and dared
to argue with him – and made life hell for us. Because of him, we demanded a
meeting with our chairman, Mr Mah Bow Tan, to air our grievances. But, being
the seasoned politician that he was, Mr Mah had little difficulty handling this
bunch of featherweight trainers, and skillfully sidetracked the issues so that
at the end of the meeting, we did not get to deliver a single of our carefully crafted
speeches.
The toughest part of my work
was when I had to travel overseas to conduct training. I had to lug along
stacks of heavy transparencies in a huge bag like those used by airline pilots
and doctors; not daring to include my precious transparencies in my check-in
luggage. Hence, you can understand why, even at a quite senior age, I was quick
to embrace the newer IT technologies like Powerpoint, and digital cameras when
these came along in the 21st century. They made our lives much
easier.
My eldest brother Chun Chew making a presentation at a PSA QCC Convention. |
Me conducting an in-house 5S class. Cannot recall which company. Notice the gigantic (film) slide projector? |
Incidentally, during my
undergraduate days in the early 1970s, our lecturers did not even get to use
the OHP. Everything was chalk and blackboard.
In my reservist days, I
remember the SAF trainers used to come to the class with a plastic folder (green
colour of course – every in the army seems to be green in colour) full of OHP
slides mounted on cardboard frames.